Sister Knowlton's "Arrival in Colorado" letter

HI FAMILY!

I'm in Colorado. What. Someone pinch me. We woke up at 4 yesterday and took a huge bus of missionaries to the airport. I thought we were supposed to be contacting the whole way there but I guess not, so I only talked small talk with some people. It was funny being stared at as a giant group of missionaries. People seem to either really like us or really hate us haha.

Before I forget since I always forget things: you have to send my mail by priority. I don't know what that means but I'm sure you do. Also, don't put a nickname on the envelope because they need to know who to send it to, they go to the mission office.
1250 Main Street
Broomfield CO 80020
Also, my P-day is Monday even though I get to email today and I have 2 hours! So nice of President Toombs!

Okay, so we got picked up my President and Sister Toombs. They said this was the biggest group they have ever had (27 missionaries I think?) 19 of us were sisters and they said in the past year and a half that they have been serving they've had a total of 14. And now we have 19 in one flight!! We were driven to the mission office, I was freaking out the entire drive because I was so excited. Colorado is so lovely. There we ate. These details are so lame and boring haha. ANYWAYS so as you know, the mission is splitting into the Fort Collins mission so wherever our first area was, that was the mission we would be in the next transfer. I think 2/3 were switched to the new mission. I'm staying in Denver North and so are 4/6 girls in my district!!!! YAY we were so happy not to be split up but terribly sad Sis R and Sis L are not with us anymore :( President Toombs told me my companion is a really obedient hard worker so I was happy. He said she was 1 of the 2 first 19 year olds in the mission (She's 20 now). Before I left I told him that I was going to work really hard. We met our trainers, mine is Sister H by the way.   She has loooong blonde hair, blue eyes and is tan from Florida. She is really sweet and does seem to be hard working, I'm the second person she's trained and she's only been out for 4 months but her last person she co-trained in a trio. Her and her last companion are pretty much BFFs and she LOVED her last area. Sometimes it's awkward for me because I think she really misses the ward and her old companion but give it time, we will become great friends I think! :) She is kind of quiet but not necessarily shy.. She already graduated from BYU in exercise science and she only did 2 terms and 2 semesters. I wonder how many sentences I can start with "She"....

So my area is Malley. Sis H has never been here before and it's her second area so I think sometimes she gets discouraged because she doesn't know any people to talk to or where anything is. I hope I can let her know that it's totally okay, I don't know where anything is either!! ;) Our area book (where they list investigators, past investigators, new converts and every other really important thing we need to know to find people to teach) is completely empty. There is a pair of Elders in our ward so they will be showing us around later today.

We stay with members in this mission so we are staying with Sister P. She owns a storage area and just has a small little attachment that she lives in by herself. She has 5 adult kids but I don't know about her husband or where he is. I think she wanted us to stay with her for company, she looooves to talk and tell us about herself. It's adorable, she's pretty scattered sometimes. The area is really humble, I saw a lot of gorgeous neighborhoods driving to the mission office but my area is not at all like those. The Bishop stopped by this morning to give us some names of people in the ward to talk to and he seems nice. We drove to the Relief Society president's house, it was a small house with lots of little kids running around because she has a day care. Basically it's not like Felicita Ward here, but I know I will love it! We haven't actually done any missionary work yet because we spend a lot of time trying to find things haha. I had a lunchable for lunch because we couldn't find any decent  food places.

My favorite part of the day so far was companionship study. Sometimes I felt like it was hard to talk to Sister H because she's fairly quiet and obviously we have only known each other for a day. But in companionship study it was totally different. We were able to talk about the gospel, which is the strongest similarity we have, share the scriptures we read, read out loud Joseph Smith History 1-20, talk about why we are here as missionaries, how Christ can get us through challenges, etc. The spirit was really strong and that's when I felt we were most connected as a companionship. I'll be honest, I'm nervous about teaching people but I know that it's not me teaching, it's the spirit and if I can depend on that it will touch people's hearts and they will be able to recognize the truth. I try really hard to be positive since I think Sis H is nervous about this new area and how we have basically nothing to go off of. Sometimes I think Sis H doesn't get my jokes. That must be why she doesn't laugh because it couldn't possibly be that I'm not funny ;) See look at how funny that was.

President Toombs told us that a general authority said there are 5 people in every single ward that are prepared by the Lord to be baptized right now. HOLY COW THAT'S SO COOL! So I asked Sis H if we can constantly be praying to find those 5 people. I know they are out there because someone called by a prophet of God said so. I don't know if you know this, but we are supposed to invite people to be baptized in the very first lesson. At first I would think that is way too pushy but 1. it makes sense to let people know why we're there as missionaries (which is not to baptize people, it is to bring people closer to Christ and baptism is one step in that direction that people MUST take) 2. all instructions we are given is what Heavenly Father would ask us to do, so we do it. Also, get this, we have a meeting next Friday and every new missionary has to have invited at least one person to be baptized by then. AHHH- I mean- no problem, I have faith ;)

I have so much  time to email. This is cray. I would've put pictures on but I couldn't readily find where I packed my SD card reader, sorry. next week for sure! Mom, have you gotten my contacts yet? The ones I have are an old prescription and I want to see the beauty of Colorado!!!!

I know I forgot 20 billion things that I wanted to say like I normally do but I'll wrap this up. I'm sorry if my emails are ultra boring with horrible grammar. Let me know what you want to hear! I know that I am supposed to be on a mission right now. I know that I have the most important thing in the world to share with people and I can't wait to do that. I think my strategy will be to run up to people shouting "STOP I have a book you have to read that will change your life forever!!!!!!" Do you think that will work out? I love being a missionary. I love looking for the good all around me and I'm so ready to work as hard as I can. This is true. It is. I know it and will never deny it. Thank you for all your prayers and love. If you sent a dearelder since Friday I am waiting for those to be forwarded to me, so I haven't read them yet. Amy- thank you sooo much for writing me. I absolutely love reading your weekly letters they make me smile and laugh a lot. I will be trying so hard to reply but know that I'm so thankful for them. (All you other siblings are slacking big time. Besides Kimberly who wrote me once)

I LOVE YOU! Now go read the Book of Mormon and pray.
Sister Collette Knowlton